


Blossoms Beneath the Willow Tree

by LilyFire



Category: The 100
Genre: Baby, Death, F/M, Sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-05
Updated: 2017-06-05
Packaged: 2018-11-09 07:26:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11099769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LilyFire/pseuds/LilyFire
Summary: Bellamy and the others make it back to earth, where Clarke greets them with her daughter..."You are the most beautiful thing I keep inside my heart"





	Blossoms Beneath the Willow Tree

**Author's Note:**

> Set after 4x13, some creative license. Warnings -- sadness may ensue.

 

_2,199 days since Praimfaya._

 

The radio was cold in Clarke’s palms, its crackling static hushing the rustle of the undergrowth.

 

From the Rover she could hear Madi’s murmurs of impatience, but the girl had learned early on that her mother’s ritual was to be practiced in silent solitude.

 

Her daughter, conceived in heated desperation and unspoken love on one of the last days of earth, was aging prematurely by the waves of radiation that still thickened the atmosphere.

 

\--

_Raven’s stream of curses drowned out the patient voice of Allie, “engine check needed, repeat engine check needed.”_

 

_“Raven…” Harper placed a reassuring hand on her back_

 

_“No! Don’t touch me!” she stood swiftly, despite her injured leg “I have killed us all! Do you know that? You should have stayed at the bunker!” Raven turned her back, embarrassed at the angry tears that ravaged her cheeks in frustration._

 

_Bellamy and Clarke bounded down the steps, stumbling to a panicked halt in front of the smoldering rocket._

 

_“Raven what happened?”_

 

_“We are dead! We are all dead!”_

 

_“No.” Clarke wore her expression of firm stubbornness “We still have an hour and a half. Fix it.”_

 

_“I can’t!”_

 

_“Fix it!”_

 

_“Clarke…” Bellamy, glanced wearily at Raven’s slumped form_

 

_“Don’t.” through her icy glare he could detect the fear that simmered in her blue depths._

 

_He sighed “let’s talk about this.”_

 

_\--_

 

_The bed was unmade, and Clarke sunk into the mattress, grime staining its pristine whiteness._

 

_“It can’t end like this? Can it?” her gaze was begging for a kernel of hope, and even though Bellamy felt his optimism slipping through his grasp, he sat down heavily next to her, taking her hand in his own. He rubbed her knuckles with his thumb, listening to each painful shudder of her breath as she fought for control, for reason._

 

_“We won’t end like this.”_

 

_She fixed him with her watery blue stare, and the sight of his princess losing hope in the very last hours of their existence tore into his chest._

 

_“Clarke” he breathed, placing a gentle hand on the side of her face, wiping away the streaks of grief “we will be okay.”_

 

_His words sounded hollow, but Clarke closed her eyes at his touch, and turned his hand to place a tender kiss on his palm._

 

_Bellamy shuddered at the intimacy, and when her tear-streaked gaze met his own, he slipped his hand to the back of her neck and pulled her into a fervent kiss._

 

_He tasted the sweet salt of tears on her lips, felt the tremor of each heartbeat. Waves of desolation and the shadows of unsaid words crashed over them as they clung to one another, drowning in the brief salvation of the amour._

 

_“Clarke,” he panted when they finally broke away. His fingertips brushed her lips, a torrent of unspoken feelings glimmering in his gaze._

 

_“No. Don’t say anything,” her voice cracked as she shrugged off her jacket, and he silenced her sobs with another despairing kiss._

 

 

_\--_

 

With a sigh Clarke tucked the radio away and beckoned Madi to join her. The girl skipped over happily, sitting in her mother’s embrace, listening to the gasping of her heart until it faded to a steady beat.

 

“You have your father’s coloring,” Clarke smiled softly “his warm brown eyes, the dusting of freckles, his unruly hair.” She ruffled Madi’s hair, amused at the girl’s indignant mumblings.

 

“Tell me more about father.”

 

Clarke closed her eyes, enjoying the feel of her daughter wrapped tightly in her arms. “He was a leader, brave and strong.”

 

“And handsome.” The girl rolled her eyes

 

Clarke chuckled “Very. He was impulsive too, I think that’s where you get it.” she tickled her daughter, her shrieks of mock struggle bore a hint of Bellamy’s raspy voice.

 

“Did you love him?” the girl asked, once the giggles had ceased.

 

A solitary tear smoothed the lines of Clarke’s face, but she hastily wiped it away

 

“Yes, but I never got to tell him.”

 

“I’m sure he knew.” Madi smiled back at her mother before leaping to her feet, hand outstretched “Come on, you promised we’d collect berries!”

 

Clarke’s eyes still shimmered with unshed water, but she grasped her daughter’s small hand in her own “That I did. Shall we have pie for dinner?”

 

\--

 

_She remembered the night she brought Madi into this forsaken and barren world. Praimfaya still suffocated the lands, sickening the air and befouling the water, so Clarke had no choice but to remain entombed inside. Afraid to use any of the precious few candles, she dwelled in constant night. Winds of the toxic death wave still blighted the earth, screeching like a horde of demons._

 

_Clarke lay on the floor, hands braced on her rippling belly. The pains slashed through her body with a blinding, excruciating force. She couldn’t even stumble to the kitchen to boil water, and her screams were swallowed by the roar of the hellfire that threatened from outside. Sweat broke out on her forehead, mingling with tears and the stench of blood that seeped to her feet._

 

_“Clarke,” she thought she could hear her mother’s calm voice, her gentle hand on her feverish skin “honey, you need water, and sheets. Do this for the baby.”_

 

_Darkness terrorized her vision as agonizing spasms wracked her body. From the blackness Lexa loomed, her eyes steady “Get up Clarke. Yu gonplei nou ste odon.”_

 

_She gripped Clarke’s arm, the brush of her cape soothing the demons that tore at Clarke’s insides. Her mother’s voice rang clearly amidst the shrieks and screams, and Lexa’s firm grasp beckoned forth her will to live._

 

_“I will not die alone,” she gritted out “I WILL NOT DIE ALONE!”_

 

_She seized the brief moment between spasms to drag herself forward, knees scraping the jagged carpet._

 

_Yu gonplei nou ste odon._

 

_The pot of water squatted over the warm stove, and Clarke shivered with a cold sweat._

 

_“Sheets.” Abby reminded her patiently_

 

_“I can’t make it to the bed…” her mouth felt like it was stuffed with cotton, and her limbs were heavy and sluggish._

 

_“Who said you needed the bed?” Lexa smirked, draping her cloak across Clarke’s bulging belly “Now rip it.”_

 

_With shaking hands Clarke clutched the fabric, biting into its thick material and shredding it._

 

_Her screams lit up the air, roaring louder than the fiery backdrop of Praimfaya. Abby and Lexa had vanished, and Clarke felt a stabbing sense of loneliness with every piercing contraction._

 

_“We are going to be okay,” she murmured, hugging her bump._

 

_“Brave princess.”_

 

_“Bellamy” it was a whisper, and she feared that opening her eyes would reveal nothing but the gloom of the desolate house._

 

_His large hand covered hers over the bump of their baby, and he pulled her to his chest, his lips warm against her ear._

 

_“Push.”_

 

_She screamed herself hoarse, each convulsion wringing blood and tears from her weary form._

 

_“Almost there.”_

 

_Angry at the world for suffocating in its own flames, angry at her friends for abandoning her, and angry at her stupid will to live through the torture of isolation, she pushed with all the strength known to Wanheda._

 

_Faint mewlings illuminated the darkness, and the last sight she beheld before she succumbed to the exhaustion, was her tiny newborn cradled in Bellamy’s arms._

 

_“Well done Princess.”_

 

_And he kissed her softly, the baby safe within their embrace._

\--

 

The landing was rough. Murphy had sustained a concussion, Emori was vomiting a few feet from the reckage, and Monty stumbled about as though drunk. The only person who seemed unaffected by the smoldering metal and fizzing wires was Raven.

 

“I told you I could do it!”

 

“A shit landing for a shit planet.” Murphy coughed “Well done Raven.”

 

Their resident mechanic was about to launch into a snarky tirade when the crackling of the radio startled them.

 

“Bellamy, if you’re alive, it’s been 2,200 days. Get your ass down here.”

 

At the sound of her voice Bellamy shot to his feet, scrambling over piles of scorching metal and jagged rocks. He seized the radio, pressing down the button with such a force Raven feared it would shatter.

 

“Clarke! Clarke! Clarke is that you?” Panic and desperation cloaked his voice, raising it to a fevered pitch.

 

“Clarke!”

 

“Bellamy? My God, Bellamy is that you?”

 

He bowed his curly head and wept.

 

\--

 

It took nearly a week to stagger through the tangled and poisonous jungle. Bellamy urged them on incessantly, shouting that they could trudge onwards one more hour, then another, that they had just had a water break. Tensions were strung high, rattling the air and curdling everyone’s blood. Bellamy once had to be dragged off Murphy, whose complaining had earned him a fat lip and swollen jaw.

 

“Hey,” Harper placed a gentle hand on Bellamy’s shoulder, stepping back when he flinched “We will get to her.”

 

 

“Not soon enough.”

 

\--

 

The roar of the Rover greeted them first before they saw its bulky shape bumping over the uneven terrain.

 

Like a thirsty man crazed at the sight of water, Bellamy dropped his pack and broke out into a sprint.

 

Clarke was out of the Rover as soon as she threw it into park, and the two clashed together in a dying embrace.

 

“Clarke,” he whispered, breathing in the scent of her hair, clutching her tight.

 

She had no words, though her hot tears on his neck and the rapid beat of her pulse told him all he needed to know.

 

 

_I missed you, my love._

 

 

“Wait until you see your daughter.”

 

“What? I, I have a daughter?” His face lit up as golden as his princess’s hair, and he was overcome with a joy that eased his pain and guilt.

 

 

\--

 

Clarke had made her home in Allie’s old mansion, despite parts of its structure tumbling into disrepair.

 

Greenery struggled through the barren patches, and wildflowers bloomed between the tiles.

 

Bellamy held her hand throughout the entire journey, her fingers in his threatening to bring tears.

 

Every time he gazed at her he thought only of the time he left her behind, but her reassuring presence planted both seeds of hope and tore open his old scars.

 

“Madi? Madi are you in the back?” Clarke shouted, then quieter to Bellamy “You are going to love her.”

 

They stood in shifting unease as Clarke’s shouts were met with silence.

 

“Madi? Ah, here she is!” Clarke let go of Bellamy’s hand, turning to face the group triumphantly, one arm poised in the air as though wrapped around a child.

 

“Madi, meet your father.”

 

 

 

 

There was only empty space.

 

 

 

 

Stunned, no one breathed a word for many moments.

 

“Clarke,” Raven’s voice wavered “there is no one there.”

 

She frowned “This is Madi, my daughter.”

 

She looked at Bellamy “our daughter.”

 

He knelt on one knee before the broken hearted woman he had loved too late.

 

“Clarke” the words rippled like water “my love, there is no one there.”

 

Clarke shrieked and pushed him away, reeling back around with a closed fist, connecting it to Bellamy’s jaw.

 

“How dare you! How dare you say that about our daughter! _Our daughter_ Bellamy!”

 

He did nothing to stop her as she pummeled him, fist after fist against his chest while she sobbed and wailed.

 

Each blow shattered his heart, and when she collapsed from exhaustion he cradled her in his arms.

 

 

\--

 

 

Two days drained away, and Clarke rested fitfully in a sedated sleep.

 

The others set about repairing the computers, clearing the rubble, and scavenging for food.

 

Grumbling about the others’ lack of appreciation for his fine skill set, Murphy was sent on a hunting trip.

 

The bow and pitiful arrows he had been outfitted with were crudely formed and had already pricked him with splinters. He kicked at rocks and only half-listened for rabbits that lurked in the undergrowth.

 

“As if anything could survive in this damn place.”

 

In six years very little vegetation had straggled upright, and he was doubtful any animals remained, or even if they could be eaten.

 

“Another fucking two headed deer.” He mused, recalling the one Clarke had mentioned, long ago, when the earth was still green and more than a handful of people breathed on its surface.

 

_Clarke_ , she was messed up. A dead kid? Or a made up one? Murphy was alarmed by the twinge of pity that strangled his heart-strings.

 

Hiking the bow up further onto his shoulder, he ventured deeper into the forest. The blazing sun sunk a little lower, and he had yet to discover anything edible. The wind picked up, and on its blistering breeze he caught the scent of something sickly sweet.

 

“Rabbits like flowers right?”

 

When he stumbled into the clearing, he found no rabbits, but ghosted pale at the sight.

 

 

\--

 

 

Murphy returned from the fruitless hunting mission, wringing the bow in his hands.

 

“Bellamy, you need to see this.”

 

At his steely tone the crew halted their progress, “I’ll come too – ”

 

“No.” Murphy couldn’t meet their curious glances

 

“Just Bellamy.”

 

“You had one job Murphy,” Bellamy’s voice was gruff with irritation, but over six years with his barbed demeanor had taught Murphy to recognize the underlying prick of fear.

 

He didn’t offer a snappy retort, and Bellamy returned to silence, the needles of fear sharpening.

 

The men picked their way over leafy vegetation and collapsed rocks, arriving in a small clearing.

 

 

Murphy pointed “over there, by the willow tree.”

 

 

Bellamy glanced at him wearily, unsheathed his knife and crept stealthily toward the swaying branches.

 

 

Beneath its shade blossomed a rose bush, its flowers thick and blood-red. The cloying scent clotted the air, overwhelming Bellamy’s senses as he slipped to its edge.

 

 

Petals graced a small furrow of earth a deeper shade than the rest. Ensnared in the thorns of the roses lay a makeshift cross, its worn white paint peeling away. In shaky charcoal letters, one word was sketched.

 

 

 

 

 

_Madi_

 

 

 

 


End file.
